“12 Years A Slave” Dominates With 7 Spirit Awards Nominations

Hollywood’s awards season started off with a bang as nominees for the 2014 Film Independent Spirit Awards were announced yesterday. Hosted by Oscar winner Octavia Spencer (“The Help”) and Paula Patton (“Baggage Claim”), the critically acclaimed “12 Years A Slave” received a whopping 7 nominations including Best Feature, Best Supporting Actress (Lupita Nyong’o) and Best Supporting Actor (Michael Fassbender).

The Spirit Awards have become an influential agent in predicting which movies and actors will go on to to be Oscar nominated. David O. Russell’s “Silver Linings Playbook” walked away with four Spirit Awards earlier this year and went on to snag eight Academy nominations, with Jennifer Lawrence winning a Best Actress Oscar. The year prior, “The Artist” also won 4 Spirit Awards, and ended up winning five Oscars including Best Picture and Best Actor (Jean Dujardin).

The Spirit Awards will air March 1, 2014.

Complete List of nominations:

Best Feature12 Years a Slave, All Is Lost, Frances Ha, Inside Llewyn Davis, Nebraska